AFTER departing early from the G7 summit in Quebec for Singapore, President Donald Trump called on US representatives not to endorse the joint communique put out by the heads of the Group of Seven industrialised nations.

Trump made the statement on Twitter following ‘false statements’ made by Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The US President insisted that Trudeau’s remarks that Canada would not be pushed around ‘were very dishonest and weak’. ‘Based on Justin’s false statements at his news conference, and the fact that Canada is charging massive Tariffs to our US farmers, workers and companies, I have instructed our US Reps not to endorse the Communique as we look at Tariffs on automobiles flooding the US Market!’ the US president further stated.

The Canadian prime minister issued a statement following Trump’s twitter message, insisting that Trudeau said nothing at the G7 summit that he had not told Trump in person. Trump’s statement from aboard Air Force One presidential aircraft en route to Singapore – where he is to hold a historic summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un – came just minutes after the publication of a joint communique that had been approved by the other G7 leaders.

Earlier, Trudeau had insisted in a press briefing that Trump’s decision to invoke national security to justify US tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum was ‘insulting’ to Canadian veterans who had stood by their US allies in conflicts dating back to World War I. ‘Canadians are polite and reasonable but we will also not be pushed around’, he emphasised, further adding that he had told Trump ‘it would be with regret but it would be with absolute clarity and firmness that we move forward with retaliatory measures on July 1, applying equivalent tariffs to the ones that the Americans have unjustly applied to us.’

THE G7 summit has ended in tantrums, with US President Donald Trump lashing out at Canada’s Trudeau, who was hosting the gathering. Trump from his jet tweeted a bombshell, that he had instructed his representatives at the Quebec G7 to withdraw support from the G7’s final statement. He accused Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of acting ‘meek and mild’ during meetings, only to attack the US at a news conference.

Trudeau had described as ‘insulting’ Trump’s decision to invoke national security to justify tariffs.

Differences over the US tariffs on steel and aluminium imports were papered over in the joint communique that advocated a ‘rules-based trading system’, only for Trudeau to then vow to press ahead with retaliatory tariffs against the US on 1 July.`

He said in Trump’s absence: ‘Canadians are polite and reasonable but we will also not be pushed around.’ Trump responded that he had instructed US officials ‘not to endorse the communique as we look at tariffs on automobiles’, adding that Canada is ‘charging massive tariffs to our US farmers, workers and companies’.

In the original communique, the group of major industrial nations – Canada, the US, the UK, France, Italy, Japan and Germany – had agreed on the need for ‘free, fair, and mutually beneficial trade’ and the importance of fighting protectionism.

On Russia, there was a joint demand that Moscow ‘cease with its destabilising behaviour’ and withdraw its support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. This has now all gone up in smoke!

The western capitalist world is now poised to tear itself apart with a trade war, at the same time as a new worldwide financial crisis is developing … Russia was suspended from the G7 group – then called the G8 – in 2014.

On Friday, Trump made a surprise call for Moscow to be readmitted but German Chancellor Angela Merkel said other members were against the idea.

If any state is to be driven to the wall, Trump is determined that it will not be the USA.

His tactic is to work for a modern version of the Stalin-Hitler pact, under which Hitler [was] able to tackle his western rivals, as a prelude to his main task which was always the elimination of Bolshevism. Trump wants a deal with Russia and even North Korea in order to settle accounts with the US’ new rivals in the G6.

Once that is done, then the hunger to possess the vast riches of Great Russia will prove to be irresistible. In the face of the growing trade war and the military adventures of the Western powers the workers of the world have a clear role to play.

In an unprecedented event, the G7 talks at Charlevoix in Quebec broke down Saturday, amid bitter recriminations and threats of trade war measures between countries at the heart of the world economy. Insoluble conflicts erupted over Washington’s threats to impose tariff barriers on billions of dollars of imports from the European Union (EU), Canada and Mexico.

The lead-up to the conference had been marked by acrimony, with French President Emmanuel Macron rhetorically proposing to sign a “6 country agreement”, excluding the United States. Photos emerged from the summit of German Chancellor Angela Merkel leaning over a table, glaring at Trump, who left the summit early, skipping talks on climate change.

The summit issued a final communiqué papering over the conflicts, as is usual in G7 summits, condemning protectionism but making a few criticisms of the World Trade Organization in line with US complaints. The US was expected to sign, but Trump, after listening to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s post summit press conference while en route to Singapore for a summit with North Korean President Kim Jong-un

Kim Jong-un is not president, but chairman of the North Korean parliament’s State Affairs Commission; in practice a more powerful position than president.

, fired off a volley of tweets that signaled a comprehensive breakdown of the G7 talks.

After Trudeau said that the communiqué criticized protectionism and that Canada would maintain its $16 billion retaliatory tariffs on US goods, the biggest Canadian tariffs since World War II, Trump hurled invective at Trudeau, warning that he “will not allow other countries” to impose tariffs. He accused what are nominally the closest US allies of having targeted the US for “Trade Abuse for many decades—and that is long enough.”

In another tweet, the US president threatened a major escalation of trade war measures with tariffs on auto imports and announced the breakdown of talks: “Based on Justin’s false statements at his news conference and the fact that Canada is charging massive Tariffs to our US farmers, workers and companies, I have instructed our US Reps not to endorse the Communiqué as we look at Tariffs on automobiles flooding the US market!”

This is the first time since G7 summits began in 1975—originally as the G5 with the United States, Japan, Germany, Britain and France—that all the heads of state could not agree on a communiqué.

What is unfolding is a historic collapse of diplomatic and economic relations between the major imperialist powers. For the three quarters of a century since World War II, a broad consensus existed internationally in the ruling class that the trade wars of the 1930s Great Depression played a major role in triggering that war, and that trade wars should be avoided at all costs. This consensus has now broken down.

Explosive conflict and uncertainty dominate the world economy. The United States, the EU and Canada are preparing tariffs impacting untold billions of dollars in goods and threatening tens of millions of jobs worldwide. As the remarks of Trudeau and Trump show, US tariff threats are setting into motion an escalatory spiral of tariffs and counter-tariffs with potentially devastating consequences.

The collapse of the G7 talks cannot be explained by the personal peculiarities of Donald Trump. Rather, this historical milestone is an expression of US imperialism’s desperate attempts to resolve insoluble contradictions of world capitalism. Not only Trump, but prominent Democrats and large sections of the European media and ruling elite are all recklessly calling for trade war measures against their rivals.

Analyzing US imperialist policy in 1929, the year before the eruption of the Great Depression, Leon Trotsky warned: “In the period of crisis, the hegemony of the United States will operate more completely, more openly, and more ruthlessly than in the period of boom. The United States will seek to overcome and extricate herself from her difficulties and maladies primarily at the expense of Europe, regardless of whether this occurs in Asia, Canada, South America, Australia or Europe itself, whether this takes place peacefully or through war.”

The G7 summits were launched to manage conflicts between the major powers as the industrial and economic dominance established by US imperialism in World War II rapidly eroded, and after Washington ended dollar-gold convertibility in 1971. Still unable to catch up to its European and international competitors, the United States has for decades posted ever-larger trade deficits with rivals in Europe and Asia.

After the Stalinist bureaucracy dissolved the Soviet Union in 1991, lifting the main obstacle to US-led neo-colonial wars, Washington tried to counterbalance its economic weakness by resort to its vast military superiority.

Trump’s election and his denunciations of “trade abuse” of the United States by Europe, Japan and Canada marks a new stage in the crisis of world capitalism. Bitter US-EU divisions are growing not only over trade, but over EU opposition to the US policy of threatening Iran with war by ending the Iranian nuclear deal. After decades of economic crisis and neo-colonial war, the danger is rapidly emerging of a 1930s-style disintegration of the world economy into rival trading blocs and, as in that decade, the eruption of military conflict between them.

The contradictions of world capitalism identified as the causes of world war by the great Marxists of the 20th century—between international economy and the nation state system, and between socialized production and private appropriation of profits—are exploding to the fore today.

The European powers have responded to Trump with stepped-up threats of retaliatory measures. Following the summit, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas called on the European powers to respond “together” in order to defend their “interests even more offensively.”

Historically, trade war has been a precursor to military conflict. Prior to the summit, French President Emmanuel Macron responded angrily to Trump’s threatened sanctions, declaring, “This decision is not only unlawful but it is a mistake in many respects. Economic nationalism leads to war. This is exactly what happened in the 1930s.”

European Union: Tusk pleads for Trump to end trade war with warning it will turn into a ‘hot war’: here.

The only viable response to the growing threat of trade and military war is the mobilization of the working class internationally in struggle against capitalism and the danger of war. As strikes and class struggle explode around the world—among teachers in the United States, metalworkers in Germany and Turkey, and the broad movement of workers against Macron’s austerity policies in France—the social force that can lead this opposition is coming to the fore. The turn now is to the building of an international, socialist anti-war movement based on the working class.

TRADING BARBS President Donald Trump blasted the European Union and Canada Monday, tweeting that “we cannot let our friends, or enemies, take advantage of us on trade anymore.” The tirade came in the wake of a contentious G-7 meeting, which ended with the release a communique on trade that Trump refused to support. Trump’s new antagonist is Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who White House advisers lashed Sunday, taking their lead from Trump who a day earlier called him “very dishonest and weak.” [Reuters]

Recriminations, threats between US and allies continue after collapse of G7 summit: here.

TRUMP CALLS EU ‘FOE’ OF AMERICA After a tumultuous NATO summit last week and massive protests against him in the U.K., Trump used an interview with “Face The Nation” to declare the European Union a “foe.” Germany reacted to the claim by warning Europe it can no longer fully rely on the U.S. as an ally. [HuffPost]

The United States went ahead on Friday with the imposition of 25 percent tariffs on $50 billion worth of Chinese goods, with the threat of additional tariffs in the future. The decision by the Trump Administration to launch a trade war between the world’s two largest economies will contribute to the already growing tensions and danger of military conflict in the Asia-Pacific region: here.

After tariff measures against China. Trump threatens to escalate trade war with Europe: here.

‘STOP WORRYING ABOUT THE MEDIA AND DO YOUR JOB’ State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert, formerly of Fox News, sent a tweet from her official account bashing CNN for not covering a photo-op [at the Trump-Kim summit] in Singapore — that was closed to the press. [HuffPost]

TRUMP WANTS TO BLOW UP WTO A leaked draft of a Trump administration bill, reportedly ordered by the president, would see America withdraw from the World Trade Organization, giving Trump unlimited power to raise U.S. tariffs at will — without congressional consent. [Axios]

The European Union has warned it will impose tariffs on up to $300 billion worth of US exports if the Trump administration goes ahead with its threat to levy tariffs on imports of auto products: here.

TRUMP’S TARIFFS ARE ‘OPENING FIRE’ China has warned Trump that the United States is “opening fire” on the world with his trade tariffs, and promised to respond in kind the instant U.S. measures go into effect. [Reuters]

The deal on trade struck between US President Donald Trump and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker in talks held in Washington on Wednesday does not signify an end to the conflict between the US and the European Union. Rather, it is a manoeuvre by Washington in the ongoing and deepening global trade conflict. It is particularly aimed at strengthening the US in its battle against China by offering the EU some limited concessions: here.

THE MYTH OF FREE TRADE Trump’s tariff war is the final act of a broken system that was already coming apart. [HuffPost]

While the main focus of the trade war launched by the Trump administration is directed against China—labelled by the US military and intelligence apparatus as a “strategic competitor”—it is stepping up pressure against supposed “strategic allies”: here.

45 thoughts on “G7 trade war news update”

Thank you for the information! I myself think Trump’s action is only targeting Germany. Germany now over years uses his economic power to push down all the other EU members. Germans idea of the new working class could build a situation like in the past. Look at Richard Coudenhove and his plan for Europe in 1925: https://archive.org/search.php?query=Coudenhove

Thanks for your comment! I do not think that Trump targets only Germany. He targets Canada, Mexico, Venezuela, Cuba and the rest of Latin America as well. And Iran. And, ultimately, China and Russia (see the Alex Lantier article in the blog post).

Thank you for the information!
Do you really think? So Trump wants bilateral agreements. In Europe, however, he can now only negotiate with Germany, because our politicians have “brought the whole of Europe under control” over the EU.
Of course he plays the big “contract breaker” here, but in the end I think that he wants to point Germany into the limits. Otherwise we will soon have a Europe like in the Middle Ages. Dominated by German, formerly even European nobility. The German industry wants something like Hartz IV Europe-wide. Then the slaves no longer have to go to Germany, but can also work at home. I remember the statement of the Nazis “on the German being shall the world recover”! ;-(

Yes you are right with the quote 😉 But we can understand when we see some Germans want to rebuild the “Garnisonkirche”, a military church very important for Prussia, the nationalists before the Nazis. My meaning: The nationalists which created the later Nazis to get back former eastgerman territories, lost after WWI.

German politics needed until Theodor Heuss a long time to correctly interpret this line of poetry for its purposes. After 20 years of special knowledge of this state, I no longer trust politics here. ;-(